Category Cloud

Tag: life

No one can makes us happy. Our own happiness is subjective to our own definition and perception of happiness. This personal definition is shaped and affected by various things but not limited to: our environment growing up, our parents, expectation, society, thought process, etc.

I think that is why there are some of my attempts in making people happy are never really successful. From my perspective, I often tried to impose my perception of ‘happiness’ to others when I tried to make people happy. I didn’t realize I unconsciously disregarded the consideration of others and what they think happiness is for them.

Still, what we do will eventually become happiness to others if the ‘other’ perceives it as happiness according to their our definitions and terms. That ‘other’ perception is out of our control.

The next time I ty to make someone happy, I will remind myself that what matters is my intention to do good and try my best to make someone happy and to practice empathy – the things that are in my control. The way people will perceive it is completely out of our control. And maybe, the unwanted responds – such as being ignored and not appreciated are not because they dislike us as a person, it may be just our different perceptions in happiness.

My friend just came back from her travel and she told me she met a girl that really inspires her. This girl she met doesn’t really have any plan in life she said. She will continue to do the things she is currently doing as long as it still feels “right” to her (my friend literally put the quotation mark). She wants to be able to exit if something doesn’t feel good to her anymore. It sounds like such a great idea, living life with the flow. I imagine myself constantly feeling happy and content doing what she is doing at the moment. As much as I want my life to be always rainbows and butterflies, the reality is not always the case. However, this conversation sparks an interesting thought in my mind.

I made a promise with myself 2 years go (2018) that I would do all the things I ‘want’ within the next 5 years so my future self wont regret anything from my past. I want to be able to say “I have done all the things I wanted to do”. I imagine it would make me feel good fulfilling the things that feels good to me and it felt so right to at that time. Nonetheless, 1.5 years forwards, if there is any takeaway from my life so far is decisions based only on emotions doesn’t really do me any good or take me to forward in my life. I personally think the emotion or “feeling” good or right is based on a perception in our mind and thoughts, that are already influenced with biases from other people thoughts, past experiences and even the content we consume. Based on that, we build our idealistic concept of ‘what is right’ according to our thought process. In fact, that concept also has input in our decision making process.

Instead of purely taking the feeling good or right as the primary decision maker, I have learnt to take it as a signal for me to investigate further of why is a particular thing feels right to me. The reason why I don’t want to decide solely based on emotion is because emotion and what I feel changes all the time. In fact, I don’t think at this point in my life I would consider my emotion is stable enough to be the decision maker. This might be different with you though.

On the other hand, having assessment about what we want to do gives us a more logical perspective and understanding of ourselves. For me, just solely decide on what feels right without any understanding what is the definition of “right” for me can lead me into the wrong direction. In fact, the idea of what is right for you and for me are different. I personally believe that the idea of what is right doesn’t come from our feeling but from a long thought process. It takes system 2 or a longer and more hardworking thought process to process and probably justify the inputs in your mind. Eventually, that becomes what I consider as what feels right on my thought process. The template becomes the system 1 or the simpler thought process on my thought process when I am faced with decisions and the output is “I feel this is right for me”.

PS: The term System 1 and System 2 on thought process is based on Daniel Kahneman’s book, “Thinking Fast and Slow”

This might or might not be relatable to you. We have our own values and thought process that affect our own decision making. We might agree or disagree on each other about this but that’s completely okay! I think that is the beauty of being human, the diversity in interpreting the world around us. I never intend this post to be a recommendation or self-development related or even how-to-do-life kind of thing. I just want to convey another perspective on this specific topic based on my own thought process along with all its biases and influences.

I have noticed I haven’t been consistent posing here despite the fact that blogging is probably my most favorite online platform compare to the others (talking about Instagram and facebook here)

I was dealing with a great self-doubt (cliché). And I don’t think she is going anywhere anytime soon. She’s planning on staying in my head for a long time. That granules of self doubt were built overtime and the cup is now overflowed. That is why I know that everyday I am not in a battle with anyone else but myself. Everything around me can be chaotic but the thing that determine my inner-peace is my respond to the situation. It’s still baby steps for me but I has changed my perspective in life.

Even now I am actively battling my own self-doubt. Questioning myself if what I want to say matter or even if I even matter? I am pretty sure that all of us in the same battle of our own self-doubt. I have been rejected and failed too many and I am still going through my rejections and failures. However, from that experiences I have learnt that rejections mean we haven’t found the right people, platform or place yet and failure mean we haven’t found what is right and worked for us yet. Notice the word ‘haven’t’ and ‘yet’? Whatever you and me are facing right now is not the end destination.

It feels crazy I was so full with inspiration at the beginning of my writing and now it is all gone. I think it will make a great writing prompts, just write anything that comes up in my head, even if it’s a writer’s block.

Anyways, I want to start being responsible with my life again while pursuing what I want. Constantly exploring new things while having a strong integrity with my values. Marrying the idea of survival, idealistic and realistic thinking into some sort of threesome. Weird? I know, I think so too. In fact, I was completely sober writing this out but it makes a perfect sense in my weird and sober mind. Back into blogging style when it was first born. Spilling the true and honest self out into words without having to worry about SEO, followers or any kind of bullshit.

And thank you for stopping by, I hope to see you soon. And please let me know how you think about anything in the comment below! It’s your space pipool!!!

PS: notice the shift in writing style? That’s the difference when you just let your true creativity pour out without thinking about any potential judgement that are mostly just happen in your head (and my head too)